


i'll fake god

by actualromeo



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (pedophilic incestuous sexual assault!), Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Eridan-centric, F/M, Humanstuck, Incest, Self-Harm, Sexual Assault, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Sex, Unhealthy Relationships, ambiguously positive ending?, i promise you this isnt THAT graphic, jesus christ these tags make it sound worse than it is, like really unhealthy mindsets, oh boy so, unhealthy mindsets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 08:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19970755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualromeo/pseuds/actualromeo
Summary: kanaya uses you as her little dress up doll some days, steering you to a mirror to look at the end results- sage draped over your torso, emerald wrapped over your neck, and jade shackled to your wrists. it all frames your glittering green eyes with sickening, poisonous envy.or; the shattering of eridan ampora in a series of vignettes.





	i'll fake god

**Author's Note:**

> “but wp,” you cry, “eridan wouldn’t act like that, you’re just projecting!”
> 
> and to that i say, you are absolutely right.

it starts when doctor scratch is fired. he was your science teacher, and kanaya, two rows ahead of you, quietly cries when the sub tells the class he is gone, permanently.

there’s a too-big group chat you never find the time to mute, titled ‘house arrest,’ that covers your entire friend group. that night, everyone is up talking about scratch, until aradia drops a link into the chat.

high school teacher long time pedophile, reads the headline. an uneasy sickness settles itself into your chest, scrolling quickly through the article.

apparently, two of your friends were his victims.

\--

things are different at school afterwards, as much as you’d have thought. around aradia and kanaya, people are decidedly more careful. more caring. more obnoxious.

nobody questions it when the rest of you joke about dying, but when aradia jokes about slitting her throat over some missed math homework at lunch, the table goes silent. sollux frowns at her. equius opens his mouth, shuts it again. 

you watch them, disconnected, like you’re an outsider. where has this concern suddenly come from? why only for her? you feel for them, obviously, what happened was horrible, but... it sits like a rock in your stomach.

right then, its righteous. why doesn’t anyone else get the same concern, the same respect? if you’re going to be overly concerned about one person, then be overly concerned about everyone.

afterwards, not so much. it festers into hatred, although not for kanaya and aradia. you hate the situation. you hate the bias, the unfair attention.

when that starts to manifest as the urge to jump across the table throttle aradia, or to take the hunting rifle hung up over your fireplace and blow a hole through kanaya, well...

\--

it gets to you. it does, however much you hate to say it.

karkat is unarguably your best friend. he’s empathetic, maybe too much, and you see right through him when he denies it. thus, very angry at the injustices he sees, and he sees a lot of it.

the two of you walk home together, and he vents, for the most part. for a month after scratch is fired, the venting is mostly about scratch. “i can’t believe he was such a fucking cuntwaffle,” he sneers, hands flailing around so hard you have to stay a foot back to keep from getting hit.

you make the decidedly awful mistake of commenting, one day. “ _ i just don’t understand what the fuss is _ ,” you grumble, and karkat stops in his tracks.

“ _ the fuss? _ ” he says, almost incredulously, stumbling over his feet to catch up to your side. “ _the fuss is that our friends got fucking raped under our noses, and who knows how many other kids! what the-- what the fuck, eridan?_ ”

“ _i get that it was terrible_ ,” you say, placating. karkat just looks pissed. “ _but why are they treated any differently? it just doesn’t seem fair._ ”

despite you having a totally valid point, karkat seethes. “ _jesus christ, i don’t even know why i talk to you. can’t you deal with not being the center of everyone’s fucking world for two minutes?_ ”

you roll your eyes, and karkat yells at you again. you end up screaming at each other in the middle of the sidewalk, until karkat gets pissed off and storms home. sitting in bed that night, mulling on karkat’s words, the realization you’ve been sitting on for weeks forces itself to the surface.

you’re jealous of them.

\--

in hindsight, the things you said arguing with karkat were.. a little much, maybe? (“ _we don’t even know what happened! they could have been--_ ” “ _could have been what, exactly, eridan?_ ”) 

everyone who’s known you even a fraction as long as your friends have knows that you will inevitably say something horrible when you’re not thinking, but you’re still cursed out by not three but four different people before lunch arrives the next day. to put it lightly, lunch doesn’t go well either.

feferi grabs you as you try to leave the cafeteria, and your horrible mood lifts almost entirely. the two of you have been dating since sixth grade, although not the whole time. but, when you greet her with a (mostly) cheerful, “ _fef_ ,” she frowns.

“ _erifin_ ,” she sighs, brows furrowed. she’s just a little shorter than you, and one hand comes up to fiddle with your scarf. “ _you’re... such an asshole sometimes_.”

ugh. “ _c’mon fef,_ ” you reply, blowing out air in frustration. “e _veryone misunderstands what i was goin’ for. you really think i don’t know that what happened the them was terrible?_ ”

“ _i reely do!_ ” she snaps, startling you. her hands drop and ball to fists at her sides. “ _you clearly don’t understand what those gills went through, and what you said was awful! kanaya and aradia need support, not tide comments!_ ”

you scowl at her. “ _are you seriously lecturing me in fish puns? i don’t even know what tide comments means!_ ”

feferi’s eyes narrow, blushing in anger. “ _no, i’m not lecturing you in fish puns. i’m breaking up with you in fish puns. i’ve put up with so much carp from you because i really do love you-_ ” momentarily, your heart soars, before you remember what’s happening. “ _but i can’t be with someone so shellfish and insensitive, and that’s it. no more of.. this, this on and off, either._ ”

trying to act like you aren’t actually going to cry, you deadpan, “ _you say that every time we break up._ ”

“ _i mean it! kanaya and aradia deserve our full support and i think it’s sickening that--_ ”

“ _i never fucking said i didn’t support them!_ ” you snarl, unable to wait for her to finish. “ _scratch was fucked up and what happened to them was fucked! but--_ ” (but i want to be cared about again, but i want them to stop being better than me for being hurt, but i want to fucking stab them and watch them bleed out on the lunchroom floor--)

“ _but nothing, erifin! nothing! this is over,_ ” and you didn’t even realize you were yelling until she matches your volume and your nails dig deep crescents into your palms and vision goes red and you want to strangle her and

“ _whatever_.”

\--

you’re not sure if it’s aradia and kanaya or what, but somehow, everything is going downhill for everyone. aradia’s mother disappears, sollux’s brother gets major brain damage from a car crash, karkat’s father gets shot to death, gamzee nearly drops out of school because he’s absent and high so often, and you’re just

here.

fine.

angry.

you do, in all honesty, try to be supportive. karkat cries on your shoulder and you put on one of those awful romcoms he likes and get a tub of ice cream like you’re two teenage girls getting over a breakup. you steer cronus from trying to visit the captors, mostly because he bitches about how different mituna is now any chance he’ll get, and you doubt that will be very productive to his recovery.

but you’re angry on the inside. your life is fine, really, even if cronus is a bitch and your dad is busy, you don’t have anything more than rich boy problems.

even feferi’s mother has been bearing down on her, and equius’ home life is as weird as it always is. you are, objectively, the best off in your friend group, and that doesn’t sit well. it’s sick, you recognize vaguely, to wish you were worse off, but you feel like you’re falling behind. like you’re somehow not as good, not as worthy, worse than all your friends. or rather, you need to be worse.

you stew in bitterness, prompting merciless visions of gutting your friends. you’ve always have violent thoughts, but these are overpowering, tinting your vision red. you never dwell on them long- they’re your friends, after all- but it’s always there. in the background. kill them for leaving you behind. kill them and leave them behind.

it’s not quite an obsession, at first, trying to get worse (better?)

you pick fights with your father and with cronus, but neither of them respond with anything worse than a middle finger. of course. of course not. because they aren’t abusive, just fucking annoying and awful but

and see, that’s the issue. you can’t think badly about your family, can’t even fucking get upset without some awful nagging voice pointing at feferi’s or vriska’s or gamzee’s or even fucking equius’ families. because really, is it right to be complaining when so many others are worse? what are you so upset about when other people get the shit beat out of them at home?

so you set yourself on getting rid of that. they can’t have it worse than you if you have it worse than them.

turns out, _how to make your family shittier_ doesn’t have that many results on google.

\--

the first time you cut yourself isn’t out of any self hatred or emotional instability. it’s to sate the gaping black hole opening in your chest that wants you to be the very best of the worst. it’s your driving motivation, the thing keeping you going. when your head screams at you that you have no right to be upset, you reply that you can give yourself a reason to be upset.

the blade comes from a razor blade. you have pocket knives, many of them, but a breaking open a razor feels more authentic.

sitting on the edge of your bathtub, door locked, you stare at your forearm. something about the thought of hurting yourself is

terrifying

thrilling? your heart races.

you let the blade rest, not high enough to be on your wrist, but a little above the middle. you push in, just slightly, dig the blade into your skin. it’s not that bad.

fingers pressed into the flimsy blade so hard it bends, you yank it left.

pain lights up your whole body, kickstarting you into hyperventilation, watering your eyes and forcing a little cry out of your mouth.

you double over and clutch your arm, blade dropping to the tile floor. as your breathing naturally evens out, you straighten up, inspecting the source of the torture you just put yourself through and it

it’s barely a cut. it’s thin, incredibly thin, with little red dots crawling up to the surface. it pisses you off. you want to see blood, you want to have scars. scars that are countable, scars that show your worth, scars that you can show and go 'see? see? i’m not okay, i have a right to be upset,' and finally, finally be able to breathe.

sighing, you pluck the blade off the ground and go for round two. you dig in harder, til uncomfortably painful prickling makes you stop. then, slowly, you pull it across.

not two seconds in, a burning pain forces your hand, letting go and shaking the blade out of your arm.

with the second line even more pathetic than the first, it’s clear you have to rethink your game plan, chest heaving.

wiping the minimal blood off on your sweatpants, you consider, and then carefully slide them off. being even half-naked makes you a little paranoid, so you double-check the locked door before staring at the wide expanse on your thigh.

the blade is fetched from the ground once more, and placing it on your thigh- no no no, you can already feel that it’ll sting like hell. instead, you drift the blade around until you find an area, up and to the left, where it feels decent.

third time’s the charm. you brace the tip against your flesh and then pull right, somewhere just below pulling a bandaid off in speed. it hurts like a bitch, but it’s manageable.

and bleeding.

a weak ( _why are you so weak?_ ) grin splits your face at the blood pooling into the cut. already bracing the blade, you slice another line. it’s hard to make yourself keep going, but overcoming your body screaming at you to stop is a drug on it’s own, and right there and then you do five more lines. after that, another five, high on the dizziness and the thumping of your heart.

you’re not quite messy, but blood is dripping on the ground, running down your thigh, and you’re oddly blissed out, leaning back against the wall.

in a few minutes, you get up, clean up the blood from the ground, and put on some pants. but for now, you just sit and breath and appreciate the new lines carved into your leg.

\--

y’know, karkat is a hell of a dude, you think, holding the phone a couple inches away from your face. most of your friends are pretty pissed at you.. always, actually, but more so for the aradia-and-kanaya thing, despite it being a couple months now. but kar, he’s still the dude that will call you at one in the morning to rant about shit that wouldn’t dare leave his mouth after six am.

namely: his psychiatric diagnosis. you’ve mostly tuned him out because he doesn’t require much response other than the occasional hum or agreeable swear, and really, you can only take so many jealous visions of killing your best friend. your right hand is bunched up in your long nightshirt, digging your nails into your unscarred thigh and trying to breathe deep.

“ _can you fucking believe that bullshit? that- that cannot be real. fuck. fuck that!_ ”

“ _shit sucks,_ ” you echo. you actually aren’t sure what his diagnosis even is, which is maybe a sign that you should be paying more attention.

“ _what sort of fucking loser is only depressed in the winter? what the fuck? oh no, where has the sun gone, better up and fucking kill myself!_ ” he snarls, the kind of spitting angry that makes you glad you’re over the phone. 

the phrase  _ kill myself _ rattles around in your brain. that’s a trip, now isn’t it? not like you wouldn’t be devastated if karkat killed himself, obviously, but instead of the concern a rational person would feel, envy consumes you.

suicidal thoughts. now isn’t that the epitome of tragedy. or, maybe, a suicide itself...

“ _eridan?_ ” calls karkat, out of the blue. you drag yourself out of fantasies of jumping off your roof, and try to remember the correct response.

“ _uh- yeah?_ ” you think you could totally drink yourself to death, given your fathers supply.

“ _shit, never mind. thought you hung up,_ ” he sighs, a lot more tired that the last time you were paying attention. don’t people usually do it by slitting their wrists? or, like, arms?

“ _nah, nah, just--_ ” entertaining visions of killing myself to be valued again-- “ _tired. it is, you know, one am_.”

“ _shit, right,_ ” he says. “ _shit, fuck, eridan, you can just tell me to fuck off you know, you don’t have to--_ ”

“ _kar, chill._ ” your blade is somewhere in your desk drawer, isn’t it? you moved it so you don’t have to hide in the bathroom every time. “ _you’re not buggin me, i just might fall asleep on you_.”

“ _no, no, i’m gonna go. sorry for talking your fucking ear off, but i’ve gotta get some homework done for, like, once in my entire life. bye, fuckface._ ”

“ _bye, shitstain_ ,” you return with the sort of deadpan affection you can only muster for him. he’d be pretty upset if you died, you think. you hope? that’s a little fucked up, even for you. jesus christ.

you let your phone drop and quietly walk over to your desk, curling up cross legged in the chair. right where you expected is the blade, short, but effective. glancing down at your arms, you inspect the two failed cuts from your first time. since, you’ve been careful to keep to your thighs, which is more sensible anyway; nobody can see them.

honestly, you don’t even know what you’re doing when you raise it, lining it up with the faint veins just under your skin. not even pressing, just resting it there, but it makes your heart race, your breath catch.

do you want this?

do you want to die?

you’ve never thought about it before.

you sigh, and drop the blade. it falls harmlessly into your lap.

instead you grab your computer, opening up chrome. suicidal thoughts in winter, brings up, after some scrolling, seasonal affective disorder, or, sad. it at least sounds like what karkat was describing. scrolling around its wiki page, you click whatever appeals to you.

it’s uncomfortable to admit- a lot of things you’ve been doing lately give you a kind of nauseous feeling- but you’re looking for something that fits you. you want to be ill, to have another badge of suffering that you can wave around. your search leads you through seasonal affective disorder to bipolar, then to personality disorders, which you spent the rest of your morning looking through.

you don’t find anything. when you fall asleep in english, lunch, and military history that day, you question if your search was worth it.

\--

there’s a couple of things that, after years in this house, you’ve just come to accept as a part of life.

one of them is cronus, and his... everything. he’s sort of a lot to describe.

it’s late and you’re laying on the couch in the living room, curled around the third volume of a series on the french revolution when he comes home, and that was your first mistake.

the door crashes open and you jump, poking your head up over the top to see just what the hell happened. of course, it’s just cronus. cronus, who is utterly and absolutely wasted as hell.

if there’s one thing you know about him it’s that he’s... weird, when he’s drunk. you’re not scared of him, he’s pathetic, but usually here is where you would run up to your room before he could see you.

there’s something that’s stopping you. there’s something sick that’s stopping you.

you slowly get onto your feet, like you’re trying not to provoke an animal, while he grumbles something at his cell phone. his gaze jerks up and he sees you, and like the gears in his brain are rusty, it takes him a second to recognize you. “ _eridan,_ ” he calls, leaning on the half-wall separating you and grinning.

if the gears in his brain are rusted up, yours have been removed entirely, unable to work your mouth to respond. the black hole in your chest, the sick, fucked up yearning for your own suffering knows, it knows what cronus will

he’ll

\-- well, it knows

it knows how cronus is.

he’s never, would never, do anything while sober. he’s an idiot, not satan, he’s just. drunk. forgets who you are, forgets who you are to him. logically, you know it’s fucked up, it would be fucked up, and isn’t that what you want? to be fucked up? that hole in your chest keeps you paralyzed as he stumbles over to you.

“ _you know, eridan, eridanny, you’re always here exactly when i need you. you’re so good like that, have i ever said that?_ ” his words are indistinct, slurred, but you understand them well enough for a shiver to go down your spine, staring at him blankly, lips parted. with one hand he grabs your wrist, and taken off guard, you fall into the wall he pulls you into. “ _yeah.._ ” he hums, pressed flush against you until you’re shaking. why are you shaking? “ _no words? cat in your mouth, huh?_ ”

it takes you a minute to realize he means the expression ‘cat got your tongue.’ he wants you to speak, it occurs, several seconds later. “ _cro-_ ” you start, unable to finish. his gaze is heated and you’re pressing back against the wall, chest stuttering along with your breath. you’re caged in by the bookcase, the wall, and cronus, shoulder blades creaking as you lean away from him.

you’re not sure why you’re even this scared, petrified. cronus is inherently harmless, he’s never done anything to you, and you got yourself into this fucking situation anyway. he laughs, low and giddy, at your failed attempt to- what? tell him to get off? after you just stood there and let this happen?

he takes one hand and raises your chin, and you strain to keep it just above his grip. he leans down and kisses you full on the mouth, and suddenly you can’t breathe frozen why can’t you move move run--

there is the blinking realization that he’s grinding on you, which somehow horrifies you less than the kiss. it does spur your body into action though, jerking away and making a desperate bid for the stairs but he’s still holding your wrist and

“ _eridan!_ ” he growls, yanking you back so he practically shouts it in your ear. he slams you against the wall with a thud. it’s so loud you have to wonder where your father is. why can’t he hear this, can’t he make cronus stop? “ _c’mon, don’t be a little bitch danny, be good, okay, just be good,_ ” he hums, lowering his voice as if to be soothing while his free hand grips your side, sliding down to your

you think about kanaya and aradia and wonder, wonder if maybe, under doctor scratch, they. 

you cut the thought off. this isn’t anything like scratch. it’s cronus, he’s your brother, scratch was just some dirty old pedophile.

he starts leading you somewhere, towards the stairs, and you stumble along in front of him, pacified in your horror.  _ be good, okay, just be good,  _ plays on repeat, and you’re not sure if he’s saying it out loud or if it’s just stuck in your head or if you’re just going crazy, why did you let this happen, when did he get this much stronger than you, why why why did you

everything is static by the time your chance comes, withdrawn into yourself to face own your racing thoughts instead of your brother. he stumbles on the steps and falls forward, and the resulting “ _fuck!_ ” had to have been loud enough to wake dad, right?

you’re up and moving before the realization even hits you that he’s let go, sliding on the hard wood floor in a desperate scramble for your room. you slam the door, lock it, and curl up at it’s base, and cronus follows. he kicks the door, shaking you with it. “ _you fucking cunt!_ ” he shouts, snarls. you bury your head in your knees, tuning him out, focusing on your breathing.

it seems like forever until he leaves, and you uncoil, still panting. you’re sick, you’re a sick and evil fucking cunt why would you do that why would you let him get to you-- you think you’re going to throw up.

your body is still reacting, flushed down to your chest, and it’s definitely not helping. when your stomach has calmed and you’re no longer choking on your own breathing, which is almost an hour later, you try to get a hold on yourself. 

you could use a cold shower, or maybe a hot one to burn away the sick dirty feeling, but you don’t want to leave your room.

_there is,_ you think slowly, _your blades._

you push yourself off the ground with shaking limbs, and slowly make your way to your desk.

\--

you have a habit of isolating yourself in the face of doubt. usually, you’ll admit, it’s for attention. sometimes you just want to see if you’re friends really do care about you, because really, it’s so easy to just draw back. the group chat is on mute, you don’t get a whole lot of texts, and in lunch you just sit back and pretend to listen. sometimes, though, you really just do want to be alone.

right now, you’re not sure which it is, and you haven’t said more than five words to your friends since cronus.

your friends have caught on to your bullshit, of course. karkat- sometimes kanaya or feferi- will invite you somewhere to get you out of the house. ...well, with kar, it’s more like 'yes your friends still like you, now start fucking talking to us again you shitty overgrown toddler,' but the point gets across.

this time it is karkat, with a message strikingly similar to your example. right after the message is an invitation to a party at the makara’s. kurloz hosts parties pretty often, and even though you’re all young, you’re gam’s friends, and he sees fit to invite pretty much all of you.

you consider his offer. for all of five seconds. (you really want to get out of this fucking house.)

in the end, you don’t really know if it was worth it.

see, two important things happen to you at the party.

\- 

the first is later, late in the night, after the first. you’re steaming, grumbling, with a sort of filthy feeling digging under your skin. when the idiocy of drunk teenagers gets too much to handle, pushing you to the breaking point where you’re really, really considering grabbing a knife out of the kitchen and just

you sigh. pushing through a small crowd of people by the door, you slide it open and slip out into the backyard of the big family home the makara’s own. out here, the air is crisp and just a little bit cool. it doesn’t do anything to stop the fantasy playing in the back of your mind of carving vriska’s chest open to take your anger out, but it’s nice anyway.

so nice, in fact, that you almost don’t notice gamzee.

“ _well, well, eribrother,_ ” he says, curving his -er’s to be somewhere closer to an -a. between is fingers is a smoking blunt, and you realize quickly that he’s high as a kite.

“ _hey, gam,_ ” you sigh. his gaze bores into you as you sit on the bench beside him. you get the feeling that something is off about him, but you don’t hang around him often enough to know what.

finally, he stops staring at you, leaning back and shutting his eyes as he takes a drag. “ _not enjoying the party?_ ” the smoke billows away in the slight breeze, and it sort of reminds you of the smoking from cronus’ cigarettes and

you shrug, shaking the image of your brother out of your head. “ _it’s pretty okay. just.. a lot. loud._ ”

he hums in sympathy. “ _now don’t i feel that, man._ ” deftly, he twirls the blunt in his fingers, and offers it out to you. “ _wanna hit?_ ”

every anti-drug lesson you’ve been taught comes back to you, and suddenly you feel like a protagonist in a bad 90’s anti-drug cartoon. like if you don’t say no someone is going to come and lecture you, like this is some big gotcha setup.

that feeling is stupid, and just to spite it, you shrug and go, “ _sure_.”

blunt in your hands, it occurs to you suddenly that you don’t actually know how to smoke. just go with it, you tell yourself, bringing it up. sparking it, lighting it, you take a breath and

choke.

god fucking damnit.

gamzee is smiling, almost grinning, almost malicious, but not really. “ _good try, little guy. like this,_ ” he says, finishing the one he had started rolling and taking a drag. his chest rises slowly, dramatically, resting a moment before, on the exhale, he breathes, “ _slowly. don’t let it get caught up._ ”

you awkwardly look at the one in your hand and nod, taking the lighter back and trying again. it burns on the way down, making your eyes tear up, but you don’t burst out coughing, and the little puff of smoke that comes out of your mouth feels like a victory.

nothing actually happens, though. you know, logically, that nothing is going to work immediately, but after all the anti-weed propaganda you’ve seen.. it’s almost underwhelming. disappointing. well, at least you’re not cleaving the girl you just slept with through in your head anymore.

you open your mouth to say something but a door slams open behind you, and a familiar voice snarls, “ _shut up! shut the fuck up! i’m doing what you--_ ” at the door, before suddenly cutting off. “ _eridan? ...gamzee?_ ”

“ _hey kar,_ ” you greet, waving with your free hand. as if you aren’t literally holding a blunt with the other one. “ _uh_.”

“ _hey mothefucker,_ ” says gamzee, nodding at him. karkat looks from you to gamzee and then sort of, like- glares at gamzee, which is weird. aren’t they friends..?

“ _...yeah, hi_ ,” he says slowly. “ _i have a question. what the fuck?_ ”

“ _...what the fuck what?_ ” 

he stares at you as if you’ve grown a second head, and you’re trying to consider the merits of blatantly tossing it into the woods as you speak. “ _are you smoking? like, weed?_ ”

“ _maybe?_ ” 

his eye twitches. _“maybe??”_

“ _uh_.”

without another word, he grabs your arm and yanks you up. “ _hey!_ ”

“ _we’re going inside, dumbass,_ ” he declares, flicking you across the forehead, flipping off gamzee, and dragging you towards the door.

inside, the noises of the party are immediately overwhelming. gritting your teeth and clinging to karkat’s arm, he leads you to a relatively quiet foyer upstairs and plants you down there, and you get yourself together enough to ask the question that’s bugging you.

“ _are you, like, not friends with gamzee?_ ”

almost immediately after you say it, you realize that you just cut karkat off. was he ranting at you that whole time? whoops.

“ _no, you douche, he’s- ugh, i don’t have time for this. i have a bunch of drunk underage idiots to round up because some asshole spiked the punch like this is a bad teen movie._ ” kar rolls his eyes. 

“ _it was vriska_ ,” you blurt. annnd now you’re thinking about vriska again.

“ _oh i’m going to fucking murder her, i’m going to cut her clean-_ ” he growls, fisting one hand in his hair. “ _kankri’s making me clean up the underage drinking mess she made. i didn’t even want to fucking come!_ ” he turns hard on his feet, storming out of the room and leaving you in the dust.

-

the second is almost directly before the first.

you’ve known vriska as long as you’ve known everyone else you hang out with, which is to say, forever. and you can safely confirm that she’s always been sort of... like that. provocative, sketchy. when the aradia-and-kanaya incident first happened, she punched someone in the face for saying they had probably seduced him, dressed in a translucent crop top and ass shorts and all. you had still been dating fef, but it’d be a lie to say it wasn’t the hottest thing you’d seen in a long while.

of course, you bitched about it later, about how the guy was just making a comment- which was kind of dumb in hindsight but the fact that it got you cursed out and slapped makes you cling to the sentiment out of spite.

but that’s not the point. the point is that vriska is here, vriska is leaning against one of the makara guest bedroom doors, her glasses hanging low on her face and that one broken pupil narrowing on you.

“ _are you coming?_ ” she asks, smug and smirking, like she expects you to say no. you kind of want to.

you take her wrist and grin, though it comes out predatory, just like hers. “ _are you kiddin?_ ” you scoff, pinning her arms above her head.

she twists out of your grip and shoves you hard. your back hits the bed and you have to struggle for breath and climb up to lean on the backboard. she barks a laugh and climbs on top of you, black hair shadowing her face as she straddles you. “ _don’t get cocky, eridan,_ ” she says, bringing your chin up. then, leaning forward, she kisses you. maybe kissing is a strong word. it’s more like she’s trying to fight you, which you guess you’re okay with.

one hand is splayed across your chest and the other knotted up in your hair and your own hands are lost, not quite sure where you should put them. you can’t quite breathe and you’re getting lightheaded, kind of dizzy and, giddy, maybe? you think that’s how it’s supposed to be?

she pulls back from you and hikes up your shirt, and instinctively you jerk back. “ _what?_ ” she bites, frowning.

“ _no- nothin_ ” you lie instinctively, throwing her a grin and sliding your hands down her sides and hiding a grimace. vriska preens under your physical praise and brings you in for another kiss. 

she gets your shirt all the way up and off you before you can’t- can’t do it anymore. there’s something terrified in your throat shooting adrenaline through your veins, flushing your face.

“ _what,_ ” she repeats, now outright scowling as you push at her.

“ _i can’t,_ ” you pant, wriggling your way upright. “ _i’m just not sure if i- if i want to do this, vris,_ ” you force out.

she doesn’t look put-out at all, just rolling her eyes down at you. “ _will you, though?_ ”

tossing your shirt across the room, she starts on her own, and you’re not sure how to. fight her on that. “ _i’m not- i don’t—_ “

“ _are you going to?_ ” she snaps, braced on your shoulders.

frozen, again, frozen like a dumbass. she gets tired of waiting, unclipping her bra, and you take a breath. “ _i- yeah. yeah, alright,_ ” you sigh, tight lipped. she grins, and leans back down into your mouth.

you end up under the covers, tangled under her. panting, flushed, and filthy. humming, she pushes herself off you, grinning contentedly. from the bedside table, gone unnoticed til now, she grabs a flask and offers it out to you. “ _want some?_ ”

“ _alcohol? jesus, were you drunk?_ ” you ask, suddenly horrified. she snorts.

“ _god, no. i’m not some fucking whore,_ ” she says. “ _i just spiked the punch._ ”

you scowl at her. “ _not some fucking whore who just sleeps with anyone at a party, huh_?” you grumble, raking a hand through your hair.

she laughs mockingly and sneers, “ _what, you want to date?_ ”

“ _date? you?_ ” you match her tone with a laugh.

“ _the girl you just slept with? wow, i would be shocked to find you attracted to her!_ ”

gritting your teeth, you force on a smile. “ _alright. dating it is_.” it’s more of a challenge than an actual proposal- you can barely handle her as a friend.

but she accepts. “ _dating it is. and so soon after breaking up with feferi too, huh?_ ” pushing herself off the bed and heading to the door, she flashes you a smile. “ _guess she didn’t matter that much after all._ ”

red splits your vision as she leaves the room.

\--

dating vriska was mostly a- joke. not serious.

you thought you were on the same page about that. it was a joke, you just slept together, and yeah, you’re dating, you guess, but not… dating dating. apparently you thought wrong. or maybe you didn’t? honestly, you’re not sure.

she snags feferi’s usual seat on monday, wrapped around your arm. karkat, across the table, frowns in confusion as fef shrugs and takes vriska’s seat. after lunch she hides you behind the bleachers and you make you. karkat was right, everything she does is straight out of a bad teen movie.

there’s something you don’t... like about it, though. it’s not a real relationship, it’s a petty fight. vriska tells feferi about it, about how you didn’t care about her, so you spread a rumor that she first slept with you while drunk.

a couple furious texts from her when she finds out later, you send her back a shrug selfie and screenshots of you and feferi’s fight. you get something back about why it’s ‘not the same thing,’ or whatever.

you’ve got bigger issues. a roll of bandages lays on your desk as you fish for the blade, vriska’s sixth call coming and going. you can’t find the nice little razor blade, so you sigh and get out one of your pocket knives. the phone you pick up on call number seven, shorts rolled up as you gauge where it would hurt the least. “ _eridan ampora you cunt!_ ” a tinny feminine voice snarls on the other end.

“ _uh-huh._ ” you run lines through the inside of your thighs. it stings more than the outside, more sensitive. this blade doesn’t cut as widely, you note with a frown, and press harder.

“ _don’t uh-huh me. you- you think i’m some fucking slut?_ ”

you snort and it shakes your hand, making your breath hitch in pain. " _well i know the truth- you told me yourself. it’s just everybody else that thinks so._ ”

“ _i can’t believe you’d fucking do that! you fucking--_ ” she seethes, and you can’t make yourself pay attention any more. there’s a sharp web of anger caught up in your chest, but that’s not why you do this.

this, this cutting thing, this has always been- “ _everyone hates you for this, everyone will!_ ”-- methodological. 

neat rows of lines save for the occasional stray in moments of lapse-- “ _you’re a god awful person, ampora,_ ”-- like now. her accusation leaves a sour taste in your mouth, digging in and slashing a couple of lines to get a grip on yourself.

“ _vriska, can we not? i get it, i’m a horrible person or-- fuck-_ ,” you choke, doubling over and dropping the blade. she says something on the other end, but your ears are ringing with pain, staring at the cut you just made.  _ shit, i cut too deep _ , is a thought you’ve had before, but not- not like this. it’s deep enough that you must have shoved the whole blade into your skin, and four inches long, pumping blood out onto your purple desk chair. “ _fuck, fuck, fuck,_ ” you chant, shaking as you straighten up, trying to stem the bleeding with a sweater sleeve.

“ _eridan?_ ” comes vriska’s voice. you remember that you’re still on the phone with your girlfriend.

“ _i’ll call you back,_ ” you manage, tossing the phone onto your bed and hoping she hangs up first. god, your chair is going to need to be bleached, or burned. 

with your free hand you shove open your laptop- incoming messages from vriska- and type, cut too deep.

after an incredibly unhelpful few minutes, you resolve to just lie back and do what you normally would, trying to regain your composure. the bleeding does stop eventually, and you disinfect and wrap it up, deciding you’re done for the night. you don’t honestly know what you’ll do if you get an infection- nobody knows about this yet.

trembling, you push your chair into the closet and sit down on the bed, taking deep breaths. no matter what you do you can’t seem to stop the shaking running through you.

when you pick your phone back up, you realize vriska never hung up. scowling, you hang up for her, turn it off, and unceremoniously start to cry.

\--

the violence in your thoughts has never scared you before today. even as you grow angier at all the wrong people, visions of death more vivid, you’ve never really been too concerned by it. maybe you should have been.

it was just a wednesday. in the history wing for fourth period, a metallic slam came from a hall down, and it was on your way, so you went. pushing through the crown, you wanted a look.

there stood gamzee. and there lay terezi, slumped against a locker. you’d have expected her to fight back, to get up and whack him in the dick with her cane. instead, she.. cries.

downright ugly crying down on the floor, as gamzee knees her in the face and grabs her collar to pull her up, eyes red and wild. aren’t they dating? you think.

then it dawns on you. shit,  _ this _ is why karkat and gamzee aren’t friends. processing it, anger rises starts rising. why isn’t she fighting back? it’s pretty clear she’s being abused. what kind of stupid victim is she trying to be? 

a horrible, territorial feeling strikes you right in the gut. what is she, rubbing it in your face? rubbing it in that everyone has to be worse than you? 

the fight ends with one girl with short black hair hitting gamzee over the head with a lacrosse stick and chasing him away from terezi. before she can come back to try and comfort her, you snatch the broken red glasses that had fallen off her face and step forward.

“ _what the fuck was that?_ ” you snap, face hot with anger. something sane in your head tells you that this is fucked up, but like the rest of the crown watching it falls silent.

“ _i-_ ” gasps terezi, clearly trying to calm down. you cut her off anyway.

“ _why did you just let him beat the shit out of you? jesus christ, fight back!_ ” you snarl, afterimages of your brothers flushed face an inch from yours quickly shaken away. “ _are you trying to be some fucking victim?_ ” you grab her arm, pushing her into the locker again. “ _get up!_ ”

once terezi is standing, lacrosse girl comes back, glaring at you. fucking pathetic, hisses something angry in your heart. terezi’s cowering against the fucking lockers, like you’d ever hurt her. ironically, the visual of you choking her out won’t go away.

“ _leave her alone,_ ” she says, blue eyes blazing. “ _let go of her or i will report you to the office._ ”

it pisses you off. they think you’re the bad guy? you can barely see, anger clouding your head. you’re just trying to knock some fucking sense into your friend. “ _you’re gonna fucking report me?_ ” you almost laugh at the notion. “ _fine, fucking do it, go ahead_ ,” you snap, pushing terezi backwards and balling your fist, punching the girl in the nose.

fifth period, you realize you’re going to get a lot of shit for it. sixth, you realize you’re rightfully going to get a lot of shit for it. seventh and eighth, you spend panicking in a bathroom. you can’t believe you did that. you can’t believe you just screamed at your friend for being a victim of abuse- how could you possibly have assumed terezi of all people was the same fucked up pile of shit that you are?

you shake til the last bell rings, waiting for that call to the office. it never comes. your only consequence comes from your friends.

lunch the next day, there are three people missing: karkat, gamzee, and terezi. feferi’s eyes narrow when she sees you approach, pushing herself up. “ _eridan.._ ” she growls, so viciously you actually step back.

“ _i take it it’s too late to apologize?_ ” you ask, your voice not coming out as meek as you had expected it to.

aradia, in all her terrifying glory, climbs to her feet, backed carefully by sollux. “ _yes, it is too late,_ ” she says, quiet with fury. it’s the first time you’ve ever seen aradia and feferi cooperate.

“ _um,_ ” you sort of stutter for a moment, getting the message that you are very much not welcome. for a good reason. god, you’re an idiot, a worthless idiot. “ _can i ask how ter’s doing?_ ”

“ _she’s fine_.” it’s curt. “ _and eridan? leave before i make you._ ”

fucking stupid idiot. fucking idiot. how could you do that to your fucking friend, you--

you blink murderous visions out of your mind.

the worst part is, you’re still angry. not at terezi, not really, but at her, gamzee, and you-- this whole stupid situation. finally, finally, you had something, some evidence your life was hard enough to be worth it. and it was all wiped away with a couple of punches. 

gamzee is officially abandoned from your group of friends, you’re hated all throughout the school, and terezi is welcomed back with the same attention and concern that aradia and kanaya once had been. the one good thing about your ostracisation is that you don’t have to listen to it every day like you had with them, stewing in visions of gouging her blind eyes out. 

  
  


\--

you’d never define anything you do as a cry for help. you don’t need help- if you did, you wouldn’t need to cry for it. people would notice.

nobody has noticed.

of course they haven’t. you don’t need help. it’s not like your friends care anymore. why should they? you screamed at your friend for being abused. you’re not exactly a stellar model of person.

still. knowing you created your own hell doesn't a make it any less painful. nights end with you tangled in your own thoughts, panic and anger lancing you through the chest. desperate fantasies of killing all your friends, bombing the whole school, just so you have a chance to get away- a chance to be anyone other than the person you are now. it's your own fault, how far you've fallen, and the worst part is you know that given another chance you'd do most all of it again, because you can't standing being okay. you can't stand the reminder that everyone else has it worse every time you feel an emotion, every time you look at their faces.

school has always been your safest place, because you thrive in academia. now, you can't breathe there. every period you have one of your old friends and you can't stand it, can't tolerate being around them. you spent your history class watching the back of sollux's head sniggering along with karkat and stewing in loneliness and fury. you miss them. you hate them.

the bell rings and you shove some girl over to get out of the room, hot, dizzying resentment curtling in your stomach. you make an impulse decision to turn away from your next class, twisting and turning down halls until you find an empty hallway, and slam your fist against a locker. it hurts so goo-- you miss your blades. open wounds on your thighs still sting with each step, but the pain isn't enough, so you hit the locker again and again until you start to flinch in your punches, dreading and longing for the pain.

" _done with your tantrum yet?_ " comes a reedy, bored voice. the familiarity of it sends cold through your veins. when you look, nepeta stands behind you, leaning on the opposite set of lockers and picking under her fingernails.

" _why are you here?_ " your voice is rougher than you'd like, dry and ragged. how much have you even spoken lately?

nepeta raises her gaze from her nails (still carefully, sharply filed, the same way she's done it since sixth grade) and levels it on you. " _well, generally, when someone starts having a breakdown in a hallway the purr-lite thing to do is check up on them. even if they did just shove you out of the way to go cry. so, mew want to get out of here?_ "

her calm, almost condescending tone lights anger through you. " _and go where? i'm fuckin' fine anyway,_ " you snap, chest heaving. you feel weak, shaky.

" _to skip school, so mew don't have to cry in this hallway alone?_ "

" _get. lost._ " you spit, hands flexing into balls- who is she to talk to you this way, you could kill her. you want to, you could grab her and slam her into the--

" _uh-huh,_ " she says, spinning on one heel and turning left down the hall. a few paces down, she looks back at you. " _...just come on, eridan._ "

" _fuck off,_ " you manage, anger and sadness blocking your throat. but you're shaking, full body trembling, and fuck you miss your friends, and...

when you catch up to her, she slings one arm around your shoulders. it takes nearly too much effort not to start sobbing in her arms.

the double side doors in the history wing lead to the fields and the woods, walking in stretched silence through a winding dust path under the trees. you come to a stop in a clearing, the sounds of small children in the distance- elementary school kids out for recess. an old swing set and unused sandboxes litter the area, a small abandoned playground. suddenly, you remember what this is. you and your friends used to come here all the time. you remember flying off the swing set with tavros, burying vriska's toys, and sneaking food out of lunch to eat on the table instead.

the familiarity triggers the bitterness and the misery of the last few months to wash over you like a wave. your knees crumple, mulch crunching under you. " _aw, eridan,_ " nepeta says, pulling you up onto your feet and to the picnic table. she curls you into her chest and you shake and cry like a pathetic idiot, a useless asshole.

" _i'm sorry_ ," you manage through gasps, hands clutching at her jacket. " _i'm so s-orry i'm sorry i'm sorry, fu-ck._ " nepeta hums her sympathy. " _i hate-- i'm-- i'm such a fuckin' cunt nep, i-- terezi--_ "

_ "yeah, that was pretty fucked up," _ she agrees, gently patting the back of your neck. you cry until you can't anymore, a wet stain over her shoulder. when it's over, you pull back, refusing to look her in the eyes. neither of you say anything, leaning against each other. _ "doing okay?" _ she asks finally, eyes shut against your shoulder.

_ "yeah,"  _ you reply, exhaustion seeping through you. _ "sorry about that." _ you're still shaking slightly, but your voice is steady, too overtired to tremble like the rest of you.

she pats your arm and doesn’t reply, and neither of you move for several hours.

she ends up leaving when eq texts her. you spent the next three days watching her with a hope so terrifying it makes you nauseous. what if you’re wrong? nepeta doesn’t care about you? the thing in the woods was just a once off and you’re going to be stuck alone because nobody cares about you because they  _ shouldn’t _ , you’re an  _ asshole _ and

and then nepeta comes over and sits down by you.

it’s after school, waiting for cronus-- who has never been on time for anything, up to and including his own birth-- to come and pick you up. she waltzes over and lays her coat down as a blanket to sit on.  _ “what’s up, fish face?” _

you swallow your shock. nepeta doesn’t have to know how desperate you were for her to come back. _ “hey, nep. don’t you take a bus?” _

_ “going home with equius,” _ she replies, laying down. __

_ “you guys finally hook up?”  _ you snort, fiddling with your scarf for something to do with your hands. you hate how anxious this makes you, fear of saying something wrong laced through your veins.

nepeta cracks one eye open, pupil glittering in the light.  _ “i do hope you know that equius has a girlfriend?” _

it takes a second to process. a girlfriend? equius?  _ “who?” _ and when did you miss this?

_ “aradia,”  _ she says with an amused huff.  _ “i support them both in all their decisions, but…” _

you shudder. _ “that’s not going to end well.” _ nep nods sagely, but before she can reply, a van pulls up at the curb.

_ “nepeta!”  _ shouts a familiar voice that freezes your blood. karkat leans out the side window, scowling. there’s a distinct, long moment in which his gaze slide over to you and your eyes lock. his expression shifts, and when you look away, you realize you’re shaking. pathetic.

nepeta leaves without a second word to you, jacket still laid out on the ground. she leans against the car and says a couple words, before turning right back around. _ “you, um, forgot your jacket,” _ you manage, feeling ridiculous as you offer it out. 

_ “i know,” _ she replies, taking your hand and pulling you to your feet, jacket left hanging in your hands. _ “you, um, want a ride?” _ she’s mocking you, but her smile as she says it makes you want to cry even more than the teasing. 

_ “with.. kar?” _

_ “and equius,” _ she confirms, and then she turns and walks back to the car. you’re not sure what else to do but follow.

cronus isn’t happy about it when he realizes you ditched him, but it doesn’t matter.

—

your relationship with vriska should have ended a long time ago, in retrospect. it was always kind of mean spirited, but somewhere that neither of you will ever admit, you know that you both were too lonely to give it up.

at least, you hope she felt the same way. you’re not sure if you could handle being just that worthless on your own.

so you and vriska dated and screamed and fought and fucked. she would hold the terezi incident over you, and you would hold the time she put tavros in a wheelchair over her, and then you would do something stupid and she’d do something more stupid for revenge.

she still has blue hair (from when you replaced her shampoo with hair bleach) when your.. thing actually ends. you’re walking in late to lunch- dad had left for a work trip into DC early in the morning and cronus isn’t exactly a responsible guardian.

you hear them as you approach, their voices echoing down the hallway. you’re still half asleep, swaying under the weight of your backpack. it takes a couple seconds to convince yourself that you aren’t actually hallucinating it--  _ “v..vriska, i don’t… oh-!” _

but when you turn the corner, they’re there. vris has tavros pressed up against a wall just outside the cafeteria, her long jacket blocking whatever’s happening, but her shirt is slung over his shoulder, and tavros’ face is bright red and it just doesn’t comprehend.

tavros opens his eyes and spots you and flushes furiously, followed by going deathly white as your vision splits with anger. 

time goes in slow motion as tavros flails frantically to get vriska off of him, and as she spins around to face you dead on, only her sports bra covering her torso. she smirks, and your vision blurs.

later, you don’t remember jumping at her. you don’t remember the things you said, either. all you know is that vriska’s fucking cheating on you, with that goddamn gutterscum, and you want her dead. her nails scratch your neck and your arms as you swing and crack against her cheekbones, free hand curling against her throat. the only sound is the blood in your ears, spittle flying from your lip as you knee her in the stomach. 

tavros is to the side crying. a crowd is gathering. you couldn’t care less, couldn’t if you tried. you’re too fucking angry, you just can’t believe that whore cheated on you jesus fucking christ vriska, why would she—

someone grabs you by the scruff. for a moment you feel like a rabid dog, kicking against the fucking wall of flesh holding you up and hissing like something feral. you catch flashes of dark glasses, the sweaty hands against you. equius. equius, vriska, tavros- shit, nepeta

you wind up sprawled on your knees in a boys bathroom, full body shaking, so engrossed in visions of vriska’s death that _fucking_ _whore_ that for a minute you think you actually killed her, and it’s

vindicating, satisfying, terrifying, sobering

equius is perched at the door, watching you, ever impassive behind his glasses.  _ “the fuck are you here for?” _ you manage to snarl, trying to scrape yourself together. you feel like you burst, ruptured and splintered like glass. like pieces of yourself are strewn all over the floor, except you can’t even see them to pick them up.

_ “to ensure that you do not hurt anyone else,” _ he says, in his usual shitty equius way. anger boils up under the surface. who the fuck did you hurt? that bitch cheated on you, she hurt you, she deserved every bit of it.

and then, without any container to hold it, the anger dissipates. your girlfriend. that’s who you hurt. you beat your fucking girlfriend like some sort of domestic abuser.

abuser. jesus christ you’re a fucking  _ abuser _ . nausea rises to take the place of anger and you barely have time to toss yourself into a stall before you retch violently. you’re an abuser, a domestic fucking abuser, you’re a piece of shit cunt wife beater who beat up a girl who already gets her ass kicked at home.

when you can’t physically turn your guts inside out anymore, your arms collapse, curled up at the base of the toilet, body wracked with sobs. god, you’re fucking awful, pathetic. you beat the shit out of  _ another _ abused girl and you’re out here crying about it? pathetic. disgusting.

whiny piece of shit. pathetic. disgusting. entitled baby. fucking bitch.

the teachers have to drag you out of the bathroom, eventually. you get a weeks detention. vriska gets a weeks suspension.

you’re not sure how to feel about that. your friends do, though.  _ “that’s not fucking fair,” _ karkat growls towards the painfully scared looking feferi.  _ “piece of shit hits his girlfriend and she gets suspended?” _  
  
  


before feferi can answer, you’re halfway out the door. you’re still picking up your pieces. you can’t bear to hear what she says.

—

isolation is not a concept you’re unfamiliar with. you’ve been face to face with it a lot, mostly by choice. you thought being isolated without choice was bad. that was nothing.

cronus is in and out, for once the more tolerable ampora. your dad is mostly just out. there’s whispers and hisses about you and even teachers look upset about your presence, and you’re—

angry

lonely

falling.

it feels like you toppled over a cliff, someone pushed your empty chalasis off the edge, terrified and lonely and hurt but too broken to really feel any of it, weighted lead blankets muffling it until there’s nothing but a dull, wet fear in your chest. nothing else left

when cronus is home, you flock to him embarrassingly. he accepts you with open arms and an expression that makes physical fear go down your spine, but lets you at least speak for the first time in ages.

for the most part, you think he doesn’t remember that night that he’d shoved you against the wall. he doesn’t act like it, doesn’t bring it up. after all, he was wasted, and it was only ten or so minutes out of his night.

ten minutes burned behind your eyes whenever you close them, but only ten minutes. 

it’s easier to assume he’s forgotten, but his hands.. stray. not always, not even most of the time. most of the time you just sit on the pile of bean bags in his room, reading or bothering him about how the fuck to apply the quadratic formula, which of course he doesn’t know either, while he’s working on his music.

but sometimes- usually with the putrid scent of tequila on his breath or the distinct red tint to his eyes that freezes your blood in fear, but sometimes not- he’ll come and bother you. wrapping his arms over your shoulders or resting them on your hips, head placed carefully next to your own so that his breath raises hairs in your neck.

he pesters you enough about whatever you’re doing that you can ignore it, mask that sick nauseous feeling his presence gives with irritated explanations and very carefully not touching the tangled, storming mess of reasons why you don’t run, run, run get away when his fingertips slide under the collar to your shirt absently.

it’s that hole in your chest, you’re pretty sure. the one that longs for your own hurt. because if it’s not then it’s the loneliness, or

maybe you’re a sick, fucked up psychopath who beats his girlfriend because he wants his brother instead, and

and,

the thought leaves you clutching the basin of the toilet, retching, sobbing, disgusted at how god awful you really are. jesus christ, no wonder your friends cut you off, they finally realized how fucking toxic you are.

abusers don’t deserve love. abusers don’t  _ fucking _ deserve love and yet here cronus is, trying to give it to you, and

and that’s how he finds you.

_ “danny?” _ his voice is soft. your body wracks with sobs and your brain runs in loops of no no no god please cronus leave leave leave.  _ “danny..” _ he echos, and you can feel him getting closer, body heat radiating off of him as he kneels beside you. his presence drags up new bile to cough out, not enough content in your stomach. his hand slides over your forehead to hold back your hair and brings forth a new wave of sobs.

there’s nothing left to vomit, eventually, but you keep gagging, choking on your own tears. the sheer presence of cronus at your side makes you ill, dry throat scratching against itself with nothing to expel.

(he’s murmuring comforts but they sound like sweet nothings and it hurts hurts stop please you can’t--)

you only stop when cronus steps away and finally, finally, you can drop yourself from the edge of the bowl, fingers locked up from how hard you’d been clutching it. your blubbering subsides to just tears leaking down the tracks on your face, unable to make yourself move.

cronus returns after a minute, with a glass of water. one final sob shakes you as you hear him enter, but there’s nothing more. nothing left of you to give. nothing left of you to break. things are fuzzy.

he offers you the water and you take it, hand oddly steady. you watch it- unwavering, instead of looking at your brother. after a couple sips in silence, he asks,  _ “you good?” _

then you’re in his room. muffled fear claws up your chest screaming  _ no no don’t please don’t hurt me _ but you’re so  _ tired _ of being scared and just fall into his bed. little tears force themselves out when you shut your eyes.

you wake up shirtless and feeling gross. you don’t think about it. 

\--

things are, weirdly, easier. you place your hurt in an opaque bubble, a sack, even the things that you can’t make yourself name. it slots right into that gaping hole in your chest and sucks every thought until your mind is a buzzing blank. you lose time, dropping off the thread and coming up later. 

nothing changes. you don’t change for days on end, don’t talk either. you loose your glasses and see nothing but smudges. but nothing changes.

there’s nothing left, and that’s okay. no more gnawing jealousy or nauseating guilt. no more anything.

you understand, distant way, that this isn’t normal. you’ve finally broken. you’re hurt. you’ve snapped. your issues have merit. there is nobody to be better than when you’re alone, and you’ve still come out on top. it gives you the faintest, fleeting triumph to think about.

it’s that corrupt pleasure, flitting just close enough to your synapses to feel it, that keeps you going. for weeks. a few months. time passes only measured in your assignments and the mornings you wake up in cronus’ bed.

sometimes you pass pieces of yourself. the boys bathroom outside the cafeteria. that spot on the wall beside the bookcase. the lockers in the history wing dented from a head slammed into them. you can almost see the shattered bits. places where you’re broken, scattered too far to hope to put back into place.

you sort of thought you’d care. you don’t.

nobody minds that you’re quieter, less present. people are grateful. it feels—  _ (bad bad bad _ —) like nothing.

well, most nobody. karkat minds. you’re not sure how it makes you feel  _ (nothing? _ ). he’s just a smudge of color, but his voice is grating and loud and springs tears to your eyes. it doesn’t hurt, but you almost wish it did, for the catharsis.

he keeps bothering you. catching up in the hallways.  _ “eridan,”  _ he says, and you lose him in the crowd.  _ “nepeta said,” _ he tries before the bell rings. you get a detention for leaving class early. eventually, he gets you in that boys bathroom, the one outside the cafeteria. he outright steps in front of the door. you sigh, ribs aching with it.

the things he wants to say to you show in the short stops and starts of a sentence. his mouth opens and he finally says,  _ “what the fuck was that with vriska?” _

you think you might flinch, anticipation making you light and shaky. but you don’t. you don’t have an answer either.

_ “are you even— sorry?”  _ he sputters, anger rising. you don’t even twitch.

for a moment, you just stare. do you feel sorry? you don’t even feel.

_ “no.” _

you hear his anger crest, sudden and sharp. you catch his first word and you’re knocked off the thread of time and suddenly he’s stopped yelling. you’re not sure if he ever was in the first place. you wonder if you missed the bell for class, inspecting the gradient of gray sweater into off-white wall.

karkat’s hand lands on your wrist. exposed skin. the warm touch makes you tense unthinkingly. whatever he was saying peters off.  _ “where are your glasses?” _ he asks, with that frown in his voice, sounding tired and concerned, and, oh.

hm.

then,  _ “are you okay?” _

something roils, vast and trembling, in your chest. all the numbing emptiness is so suddenly unseated that you hold your choke on your own breath. are you going to cry?

_ “eridan?” _

there’s just a second you have to see the emotion coming before it hits, anger first. months worth of it, locked away.  _ “fuck off,” _ you snarl, strangled by the sheer power of it, hackles rising and boxing karkat in. he’s so short, it’s easy to lord your power over him, growling down. you can’t see his reaction, but it’s vindicating anyway as you snap,  _ “i’m fuckin’ fine, not that it’s any a your goddamn business anymore.”  _ you make for the exit, throat burning.

he grabs onto you with a, “wait, stop-” and the helpless misery starts crashing down over you.

the tears prick your eyes, anger and anguish churning your gut. you shove karkat into the counter and stalk out of the bathroom, making it as far as the next hallway before the dam bursts. 

then the shame- you know karkat saw. you know he did, he had to have, you pathetic disgusting piece of  _ shit _ , disgusting abusive hideous asshole cunt fucking pathetic filthy fucking— you want him dead, you want yourself dead, you want this entire city wiped off the face of the fucking earth.

then you’re at home, ascending the stairs three at a time. you don’t know how. you wouldn’t think you had the strength to walk if you weren’t doing it, and you can’t see any more than wet shades of color.

you want to die, a suffocating ache in your being to stop- to stop existing. the maddening urge to inflict your death on everyone you ever thought liked you and didn’t _. _

there’s blood running down your thigh in rivers. you can barely see the thread of time, ducking in and out of consciousness. you don’t remember when the blade got in your hand, but your tears mix in the cut and it stings.

gone, and back. someone is screaming.

you’re still in the bathroom, blood smeared and pooled around you. it takes a second of being out of breath to realize the screaming comes from you.

everything hurts, but it’s distant and fuzzy. you can feel the conglomerate of emotions overwhelming you, but from a distance. you’re watching yourself in third person, from first person.

_ “danny?” _ comes a voice. you ignore it, grabbing for your blade instead. it’s stuck, and you’re screaming again, scratchy and dry. and you’re bleeding. like, a lot.

tears keep rolling down your face- you can’t seem to stop sobbing, and black edges in on your vision.

_ that’s a lot of blood _ , you think absently.

then everything is black, and all you hear is a horrified,  _ “what the fuck, eridan?” _

\--

the emergency room is not sterile white. you wake up to pale yellows, static spanish yelling, and a splitting pain in your leg.

it registers slowly, then quickly. you’re alive. you’re still alive, after all that. it  _ hurts _ , cages itself up in your chest and thrashes and makes you thrum with angry, miserable energy. you’re not quite so full on meltdown as you were, but the emotion has taken root and refuses to leave.

the nurse, tapping away on her keyboard, notices your attempt to sit up, mouth opening to speak— 

and then your father enters before she can get a word out. you’re not sure you’ve seen him in the last few days, before you were even admitted. it’s all blurry, but you remember flashes of karkat and cronus, cronus,  _ cronus _ and feel the fury flushing your face.

his face is red too and for a minute you think,  _ good, he’s angry with me, i’ll rip him a new one- _ and then your gaze slides to his eyes and they’re.

red. and puffy. and wet.

you’ve never seen your father cry before. 

the anger drifts away and you’re left with a hollow sadness.

in the end, they put you in a psychiatric hospital.

you stay two weeks, slowly stabilizing. you don’t really tell them anything; you keep it at a nebulous “nobody likes me.” you don’t talk about what you did, or the visions, or  _ anything _ involving cronus-- you can’t and you won’t.

for the first week and a half you rocket between anger, misery, and numbness, and for the last half week you work on discharging. apparently, “numb but still feeling emotions,” is good enough for them.

there’s no meds, or even a diagnosis. you’re still nothing, a pathetic abuser playing the victim, but you’ve exhausted all the misery you can draw from that. it’s just there, a fact. it ruins your mood, sure, but you’re not going to bury a knife into your leg again, probably.

when you’re out of the hospital, it’s summertime. cronus tiptoes around you. when he thinks you’re not looking, you catch him scowling at you. but you haven’t stepped foot in his room since the hospital, so it’s a win in your book.

your friends don’t magically like you again, but when kankri comes over to see cronus, he drops off a gift basket of stupid pastries from karkat.  _ heard you were in the hospital, _ the card reads.  _ talk to me, dumbass. _ they’re your favorites, too.

you unblock him, and he’s unblocked you, but you can’t get the nerve to send him a message. you stare dully at the flashing text box for half an hour, until you give up and go to bed.

\--

in the end, it starts like this:  _ “get in the car, we’re going to porrim’s.” _

your dad and you never did have a particularly emotional talk about why you decided that particular day two weeks ago was a good time to permanently damage some of the nerves in your thighs, but he has been babysitting you. he took a few weeks off work, but when he couldn’t stay home any longer, he’s pawned eridan-watching duty on cronus. 

being home alone with cronus makes you feel-- bad. but, thankfully, he’d been dodging it and going out anyway until now. dad finally caught him and cracked down, so he’s been dragging you out with him, letting you nap in the car until he’s had his share of debauchery.

this is.. the first time he’s made you go to one of your old friend’s houses.

at first, you’re scared. you go, obviously, because you’ve avoided causing trouble with cronus for months now and you don’t want to start now. but you’re boots shakingly fucking terrified.

you stay in the car for ten minutes, twenty, thirty, without incident. and then kanaya steps outside. she calls back, “ _ one second!”  _ to the open door, and heads to the car. you panic and freeze, and then she spots you.

for a second you’re both still. then she takes two steps to the open window, and says “ _...eridan? _ ”

_ “kanaya. _ ” you respond, straightening your spine. you feel yourself starting to scowl automatically, but stop keep your face carefully neutral.

she just sort of stares at you, visibly baffled. “ _...why are you in cronus’_ _car?_ ” you don’t answer. “ _... you… know you can come inside?”_

you try not to be hostile when you respond, “ _ can i? _ ” unfortunately, it comes off pathetic instead.

she opens the door, and beckons you out. “ _ come inside. i’m afraid porrim and cronus aren’t doing much interesting.. but you can model clothes for me if you’d like?” _

slowly, you climb out of the car. you used to do that together. she’d dump clothes she’d made but didn’t have the body for into your hands and shoo you into the bathroom, and you’d put on a little show. it’s how you passed time for years when cronus and porrim needed to watch the two of you while hanging out. “... _ ok...ay.”  _

both of you are visibly hesitant, but you walk inside together. she tosses the wallet she had gone to the car to retrieve to cronus and you head upstairs to her bedroom. it’s painfully familiar.

she gives you a little smile and opens her closet. “ _ i.. have quite a few outfits stockpiled. there’s nobody i know so painfully skinny as you _ .”

“ _ it’s the metabolism _ ,” you boast. both of you are stifled and awkward, but that’s.. fine. 

you try on the first, and she steers you to a mirror to look at the end results. it’s. 

it’s green.

sage draped over your torso, emerald wrapped over your neck, and jade shackled to your wrists. it all frames your glittering green eyes with sickening, poisonous envy.

your silent, breath caught, until kanaya asks,  _ “how is it?” _

you blink.

it’s. purple. lavender on your torso and a deep purple on your arms and scarf. “ _ it’s beautiful. _ ” your eyes aren’t even green. 

she beams.

it goes like this: on the third outfit, kanaya lifting your arms to inspect the fit, there’s a thud from downstairs. you don’t know why you react the way you do, but for a second it’s months ago and you’re in your living room. it’s not kanaya holding your wrists gently, but cronus slamming you against the wall. 

you jerk back and then you’re just falling into kanaya’s desk like an idiot, spreading pens everywhere. she looks confused and concerned, and raises her hands non threateningly. “ _ eridan..? everything’s okay- it’s just me, kanaya, kanaya maryam.”  _ she offers you a hand but keeps her distance. “ _ you’re modeling a dress i made back in march. are you alright?” _

you finally find the ability to breathe, and stand up slowly. are you really this much of a mess? jesus. “ _ i’m… fine. i’m good. _ ” you take a breath. christ, you haven’t been properly outside since school ended. you need to.. readjust. 

“ _... are you sure you’re alright?” _ she asks, coming to place a hand on your arm.

you shake yourself out. “ _ ‘m great. how’s the dress?” _

she hesitates. “ _ needs some readjustment near the shoulders.” _ she plucks at it, and hands you another full outfit on a hanger, necklace and all. “ _ try this one… and eridan?” _

“ _ hm? _ ”

“ _ you can always talk to me. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> oh god thing has taken me officially over a year to write. thanks if u read this whole thing it's kinda messy. pls tell me if i missed any tags or fucked up anything


End file.
